


If There Wasn't a Boy

by danvssomethingorother



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Child Death, Grief, M/M, a what if Azi had killed Warlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danvssomethingorother/pseuds/danvssomethingorother
Summary: “I’ve never killed anything, I don’t think I could”, Aziraphale had said firmly even if there was a shred of doubt coating his heart.“Not even to save…everything? One life against the universe?”





	If There Wasn't a Boy

“I’ve never killed anything, I don’t think I could,” Aziraphale had said firmly even if there was a shred of doubt coating his heart.

“Not even to save…everything? One life against the universe?”

\---

Maybe it was stretching it a little to say Aziraphale had never killed anything. It wasn’t exactly a lie but not exactly the truth either. It was a bit more…complicated than that.

He had never personally harmed anything with his own hand and that was true, he didn’t think he would be able to live with himself if he had.

But he had been complicit to deaths, an accomplice to Her ineffable plan and what must be done and witnessed to keep things on track and to keep things on the side of Heaven.

He didn’t agree to everything that must be done, even coward away from the messier business (he tried his best to keep himself far away from most wars), he always let things run their natural course. Wars were filled with people who suffered, people did monstrous things to each other each and every day, natural disasters were bound to happen. It was just the way things were and he wasn’t stupid enough to deny that. He was old enough to not be that naïve. He heard the people begging each day as he passed by the old church on his walk to the bakery, begging for salvation from these things, begging for angels like him to do something but sadly he always had to turn a deaf ear on those cries.

He knew Crowley often thought he got into trouble for ‘frivolous miracles' for his own personal and selfish desires. Miracling away his bodies annoying insistence to sleep, miraculously finding just enough money in his pocket after all for that beautiful jewelry or piece of furniture or best of all, rare book, or discovering that the Ritz wasn’t full after all and he did indeed have that reservation he had stated to have.

Heaven often didn’t care about those things, they cared when he stepped on Death’s toes. Treading into things he shouldn’t and treading on the ineffable plan.

Giving that little girl who ever so nice and polite in his shop that cure for her cancer she had been trying to find in his books. Giving a man just a few more breaths to wait for his wife to reach him and tell her he loved her before he would succumb to his injuries. The mother begging for her child to pull through an accident to get her wish. Bending it to where the bombs didn’t touch his neighborhood or the shop keepers he admired.

That’s where you got into trouble, if it was written a mortal would die, you weren’t supposed to change that. He got into more then his fair share of trouble and suspensions and his powers turned off temporarily for ignoring that rule to give humans even a few more minutes.

Now there was a loophole Aziraphale had found almost on accident and well he had heard enough of Gabriel’s passive aggressive remarks to know it wasn’t exactly against the rules, but it was highly frowned upon.

Making final moments painless, bending someone’s conscious just enough to think their suffering wasn’t real all was fine and they were just falling into a very pleasant sleep. A pleasant night sleep surrounded by loved one’s and feeling no regrets, only thinking of what makes one happy. If he couldn’t change the course, he could make it pleasant. He could give the humans dignity in death, take away their fears and pain and help ease them into the idea of being deceased.

Thoughts of death and what he should and shouldn’t do when it came to death and dying and all those horribly unpleasant things that came with being mortal were raging through his head like a tsunami.

Crowley was watching him pace and gnaw at his lip and wrangle his hands together and was losing patience fast. He didn’t stop his friend though, he let him continue to pace and fight an internal war on what should be done.

He had a cheap bottle of wine in one hand and drinking straight from the bottle, lounged back in his creaking and uncomfortable hotel chair eyes tracking each step Aziraphale made.

“Angel,” he finally snared slamming the bottle down against the rickety table making his friend finally stop his insistent pacing, standing like a deer caught in head lights now. Eyes not leaving the bottle his friend was clenching tightly.

“Listen,” he said taking a deep breath and leaving the bottle of wine on the table as he took his friend’s shoulders and guided him to the bed, forcing him to lay down. Aziraphale complied, curling into himself, staring out the window watching a heard of children run past their room running with such life and happiness down to the pool area.

He felt Crowley wrap his arm around him and rest his head on his shoulder, just having someone he loved so dearly close made him unwind a little but not nearly enough. The thoughts were still bouncing around his head, refusing to slow down, refusing to come to a conclusion and always reminding him this wasn’t just a child. This wasn’t just the antichrist. This was a boy he had helped raise.

Warlock, not a perfect boy by any stretch, a little bratty, too spoiled for his own good, but he had a kind heart. He had a love in their and some of that love Aziraphale knew was for him. He loved that spoiled little boy and that spoiled little boy loved him back.

“It was a suggestion, you don’t really need to—”

Aziraphale stopped him with a shake of the head.

No, he had to. For the sake of humanity and all the innocent lives he had to. He wasn’t going to forsaken the world and all the beautiful creatures who resided here, he wasn’t going to tune out their begs to make it through this life, for the world to get better. While they would have to work out their personal issues and the problems humans brought on themselves, he wasn’t going to let them be forced to partake in Armageddon. He wasn’t going to erase any hope of a better tomorrow for them.

That didn’t mean this wasn’t going to be hard and that didn’t mean he was going to allow Warlock to suffer.

He tightly grasped Crowley’s hand and let the words of comfort he was whispering to him wash over him, unheard and drowned out by his own anxiety. He closed his eyes and prayed as hard as he could and hoped She heard him. Prayed and prayed for Her forgiveness.

\---

“Poison.”

Crowley raised his eyebrow at the way the one word was said. No pain, no regrets, no more anxiety, not even truly acceptance. It was devoid of any feeling. His tone hollow as dried out dead wood, his expression had any of his normal emotions bled dry from it. He was stiff enough to be a corpse as he stood presenting a tiny vial in front of Crowley he had willed into existence.

“That doesn’t seem like your style angel.”

He stood from his chair and gently pulled the vial from the angel’s stiff, clammy fingers. He held it to the light almost admiring the beautiful rainbow of colors reflecting from it, it had an eternal feel to it that radiated love and happiness completely devoid of anything demonic. Crowley almost wondered if it was capable of killing anything, he almost imagined drinking it would be like living a life settled next to Aziraphale. Safe, warm, loved.

“It is painless,” he finally whispered, “Tastes like your favorite foods, reminds you of all you love in life, you settle down to a warm and cozy sleep…then you never wake up.”

“Fancy that and how ever did you come up with such a creative death?”

Aziraphale ducked away from Crowley’s cocky smile, pulling the vial back into his shaking hands, the soul crushing depression finally creeping onto his face.

“Its my own creation,” he mumbled, “I have never used it…but I put a lot of thought into how to make things painless. A touch of the worst poisons and a miracle or two to make it feel like death is your most pleasant dream.

“If I must kill him, I want him to not be in pain, I want him to be happy and loved and a blessing or two thrown in with enough holy water to drown out anything demonic and let him go to Her embrace…”

Crowley grabbed onto him, tightly holding him, easing him onto the floor as his knees gave out. He held Aziraphale close and kissed his forehead trying with little success to comfort him.

Aziraphale did not cry, he slid his mask back on taking a deep breath, he was going to do this and there was no going back.

Lord, please forgive me, he prayed once more before getting to his feet, giving Crowley a dead smile before leaving to give Warlock his last tutoring session.

\---

“And mum wants to get me a magician for my birthday party!”

Aziraphale, wearing his paper-thin disguise of his tutor Mr. Cortese, feigned outrage and disgust (though some deep part of him was rather hurt).

He had watched Robin William’s breathtaking masterpiece ‘Dead Poet Society’ several times in preparation to take a role as someone’s academic advisor. He had changed his hair color for the first time in over three thousand years (he made many mistakes in history and trying a new color during the 14th century was one of them).

He liked to think no one could recognize him with his greying brown hair, red blazer and cheap ties he would normally never be caught in, but he was dismayed to note Mrs. Dowling had picked him out of the crowd in a theater one day. Crowley had a good laugh at that one, but still it just wasn’t a good idea to alter his physical body too much. He had gotten it just the way he liked it over the past few centuries, minor alterations like hair color could be reversed, but he held a fear Gabriel would force him into keeping any new form he shifted into. He never seemed pleased with the way Aziraphale presented his corporal form as is.

“Have you simply talked to your mother about the prospect of a theatrical party?”

“Dad says its stupid to want Spiderman at my party,” Warlock grumbled, “He doesn’t have ...what’s it called...” 

“Passion for provocative storytelling?”

“Yeah that’s it,” Warlock chuckled, “Well something like that anyway.”

There it was, right on time, his guilt had returned. Digging deep into his stomach like a dagger. Warlock was a little boy, he loved reading (maybe not good literature but maybe with time), he loved talking about theater and sharing with him all his imaginative little stories and drawings.

Aziraphale looked over his desk at the charming little Spiderman he was doodling instead of writing his essay. He was swinging into a building to save lives and his tutor, someone he trusted to share his stories and passions with, was about to end his.

“I know you don’t care much for comics or superheroes, but I wrote some stuff last night, do you wanna read it?”

“Of course, dear,” he said shoving the anxiety down and taking the boy’s hand drawn comics.

“I can take criticism,” he said looking up as Aziraphale just stared lovingly down at the hand drawn (if not a bit crude and childish) Batman and Spiderman high fiving on the cover, “But you aren’t allowed to be mean.”

“Never,” he said firmly and smiling brightly flipping open the little hand made book stapled together, a little lopsided but easy to read still.

“I mean it,” Warlock said firmly crossing his arms, “You have to be nice about it or I’ll have your job.”

“I can introduce you to the idea of compliment sandwich,” he chuckled, he himself had only been introduced to the strange concept a few days ago, it would be more sincere then his usual little white lies.

“Never liked sandwiches much,” Warlock said with a firm shake of his head, “How about a praise pie?”

“And how would that work, my dear?”

“Tell me how good it is and then we get pie.”

Aziraphale felt the small vial weighing down his pocket at the mention of food, he sighed deeply. He would build up this little boy’s ego and then give him his last desert. The best desert he would ever taste in his life.

While Warlock’s head was turned away from him, texting away on his ‘smart phone’, Aziraphale poured the little glass vial into the boy’s glass of milk watching it bubble a moment before settling in, unnoticed by the child.

\---

Crowley swung by later that evening, watching outside the manor gates as Aziraphale ran playfully from Warlock shooting him with a large water gun. Crowley couldn’t drag this out any longer, it wouldn’t be good for the angel, it would hurt less to just leave before the poison took effect. He began honking impatiently and he felt a small pang somewhere deep inside of him seeing Warlock’s crestfallen face.

They needed to leave before either could change their mind.

He watched Aziraphale hug Warlock tight and whisper something in his ear that made a large smile break across the boy’s face. A final little blessing, tonight would be peaceful for the boy and he would wake in Her arms.

All would be right, happily ever after for all.

It should be anyway, but seeing the broken look settling into place on Aziraphale’s face, Crowley knew it wasn’t so cut and dry. He slid in and mumbled for Crowley to go, not looking at him.

Tomorrow it would be all over the paper the Dowling’s only son was dead. Tomorrow Hell would be demanding what Crowley did but tonight Crowley held Aziraphale’s hand as they drove to his book shop. He went the speed limit the first time, letting them both just take in London as he drove around longer then he should just holding Aziraphale’s hand as he finally let the sobs out.

As he finally crumpled into Crowley’s lap and began begging someone, anyone for forgiveness.

The ‘you did what needed to be done’ was on Crowley’s lips but he flicked it away as he licked them, staring off into the stars.

Aziraphale had gone almost catatonic by the time they arrived at the shop, not saying anything, not moving, just staring at Crowley’s radio still playing Queen’s greatest hits. Crowley whispered in his ear they needed to go in and he rose, following Crowley’s instructions.

He walked into the shop and crumpled down on the couch in the back room, Crowley keeping firm arms around him, leading every step of the way.

Crowley curled beside him, the couch now magically big enough for two and just held him. He hoped his friend would sleep but he knew he wasn’t, just staring with his dead eyes at the floral patterns on the couch, refusing to make eye contact with Crowley.

Tonight, Crowley would feel a small victory, thinking Aziraphale had done the right thing and all was well.

In the morning, he would smell the hell hound and know he was looking for his master. Tomorrow, he would know they had the wrong boy all along.

Tomorrow he would deal with Aziraphale breaking again, his grief shifting full force into anger before slamming right back into a soul crushing depression Crowley never wanted to see.

Tomorrow evening, Aziraphale would become dead eyed once more and whisper he was already damned, he had already killed one innocent child, they might as well finish what they had started.


End file.
